Kent Bush: Pushing the bounds of common sense

Thursday

Jun 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 26, 2008 at 7:09 PM

In four years of studying Latin in high school, one of the most memorable phrases I learned was "Edamus, bibamus, gaudeamus nam cras moriemur." Directly translated, the Latin proverb means "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die."

Kent Bush

In four years of studying Latin in high school, one of the most memorable phrases I learned was "Edamus, bibamus, gaudeamus nam cras moriemur."

Directly translated, the Latin proverb means "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die."

They say Latin is a dead language, but some in NASA speak it even today.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

Hansen has said he believes the Earth is on course for mass extinctions if drastic changes aren't made immediately. His main targets are coal-fired energy plants that don't capture greenhouse gases.

But Hansen, and the other so-called climate prophets, play to the extremes to get attention and scare people into kowtowing to their personal desires.

Another scientist was recently quoted as saying polar bears - believed by many to have evolved from brown bears - will devolve back into their brunette brethren if the climate change is not stemmed.

I never knew how much Grecian Formula had in common with global warming.

These extremists need to learn a lesson from the boy that cried global climate change. If they pointed at realistic changes and made realistic predictions, they could expect sensible people to make sensible changes.

But when you push the bounds of common sense, people naturally become cynical.

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President Al) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

To some degree, our actions do affect the environment. However, those parading with their "the end is near" sandwich boards don't gain credibility - only notoriety.

Notoriety gets the issue into the public forum. But credibility would help create a desire for change.